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The first time I met Lale Sokolov, the tattooist of Auschwitz, was eight weeks after his wife had died. At his home in suburban Melbourne, Victoria, the 87-year-old told me of the two and a half years he spent inking numbers onto the arms of concentration camp prisoners; he spoke at bullet pace with limited coherency and no flow, as he did over the course of our three-year friendship, during which we would meet several times a week.

Sitting with him and his kiddoes - his beloved dogs Tootsie and Bam Bam - listening to what was essentially the ramblings of an old man, was utterly spellbinding. I was spending time with living history - horrifying guilt and shame buried deeply for so long that...